Friday, July 7, 2017

Will Russian Regions Seek Their Own Plato Fees?

Paul
Goble

Staunton, July 7 – Many Russians are
unaware that in Russia, only five percent of all highways are federal or that
the Plato fees are collected only when long-haul truckers make use of them (ura.news/articles/1036271393),
but there is one group of people who is very much aware of this reality:
Russia’s governors.

On the one hand, they have lost a
major source of revenue as a result of the federal Plato system which is
intended to be a substitute for taxes and fees that the federal subjects have
been collecting for road repair. And on the other, truckers are using
non-federal roads more heavily in order to avoid having to pay the hated Plato fees.

But his proposal
will not only outrage truckers who will view it as another tightening of the
noose around them but also local delivery companies who presumably would have
to pay any such fees as well. As a result, such an idea, if adopted, would
almost certainly trigger a far larger strike, one including not only long-haul
truckers as in the past but also local drivers as well.

Moreover, there are two additional
“unexploded mines” underneath such ideas: They would cost the regions dearly
because the latter would have to create their own system of weigh stations and
the like, and they would highlight the absence of fiscal federalism in the
country, not at issue Vladimir Putin wants raised in this pre-election season.

If the central government doesn’t
crack down, it will lose much or all of the revenue it hoped to gain from the
Plato system and will stand exposed as a hypocrite as far as opposition to
corruption is concerned. But if it does crack down, it will spark resistance
both among the truckers and among the highway police who are the chief
beneficiaries of the new order.